Progressive groups, especially labor unions, need to hear from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that House Democrats will never negotiate away their protections from workplace exposure to coronavirus. At the moment, they don't have those assurances, with Pelosi refusing to draw a line against Mitch McConnell's attempts to hold relief hostage until he gets the liability shield for his corporate buddies and Chamber of Commerce.
"Well, we have no red lines, but the fact is the best protection for our workers and our employers is to follow very good OSHA mandatory guidelines, and we have that in our bill," Pelosi said in an interview on Sunday, referring to the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And we know how diligent the Trump administration's Labor Department is in enforcing OSHA. This can't be negotiable. Not with what's happening in Kentucky, which enacted legislation granting a liability shield to "essential" businesses. Those include meatpacking plants, like the one in Guymon, Oklahoma, a town of about 12,000 that has seen at least 150 cases of coronavirus all from that plant. Those workers are liable for their own medical care now. If they don't survive, their families will bear the brunt of their final costs.
It's not just Oklahoma, of course, experiencing outbreaks like this stemming from meatpacking plants. There's Minnesota, and Idaho, and North Carolina, and Nebraska, and Washington and every state where there are meatpacking plants. "After experiencing eight workers die and more than 300 test positive for COVID at JBS Greeley in Colorado, it's clear companies are responsible to provide a safe, healthy work environment for its employees. If they fail to do so, laws must hold them accountable for those failures," said Kim Cordova, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, which represents 22,000 workers in an interview. "Any attempt to shield companies from liability is a potential death sentence for front-line essential workers—putting all Americans at risk in the long term," she added.
Since Trump ordered them essential businesses that have to remain open under the Defense Production Act, these companies have felt invincible. They know they can roll OSHA. In a lawsuit filed against Smithfield Foods in which workers were fighting for very basic protections, a company lawyer told the judge that Trump's Labor Department would offer "support to employers" in such cases, and "I feel pretty confident we could get a statement" from OSHA against the idea that “private litigants can go around the country and try to enforce their standards."
That's the same OSHA Pelosi feels confident in protecting workers right now. Not only should these workers have every legal protection, they should be getting hazard pay and they should be getting free health care for life. They should also know that the nation's top Democrat—the only person who can make it happen—has their back.